Ah, how I have come to love that sense of accomplishment and victory that I get when I pull the wool over the eyes of a clever player character. What DM Triumphs have you had?

Some of mine:1. Finally killing an incredibly powerful, lucky, annoying player's character.2. Finally achieving a TPK (Total Party Kill)3. Finally achieving a TPK using only traps4. Finally working out how to make it so that d**n wizard doesn't steal the spotlight all the d**n time.

The wind-swept, southern reaches of Hyperborea were lands best left untraveled. Witches, Ice-trolls, and Snow-apes lived here, and not much else did for long.

And yet here she was, her four-legged lover in tow, traversing the late-winter slush, the skies above, gray and leaden. Ravens, perched precariously on the withered branches of twisted dwarf-trees, and mocked her advance, cawing rudely whenever her wolf raised his snout to look in their direction. Only the incessant, howling wind and the cursed black-birds broke the silence of the dreary tundra landscape around her.

The creature suddenly paused, and sucked in air through its nostrils. A low menacing growl escaped the wolf's gut, and he looked up at Kisanth.

There was someone or something nearby. Wolf-sense was never wrong. There were not many places to hide in this flat, uninspiring land, yet Kisanth slowed her pace, and looked around her, peering intently in a wide-arc across the white-washed terrain

Only wind. But then she spied a figure against the whiteness of the snow, coming towards her. Slight and crouched. Alone…

Ah, how I have come to love that sense of accomplishment and victory that I get when I pull the wool over the eyes of a clever player character. What DM Triumphs have you had?

Some of mine:1. Finally killing an incredibly powerful, lucky, annoying player's character.2. Finally achieving a TPK (Total Party Kill)3. Finally achieving a TPK using only traps4. Finally working out how to make it so that d**n wizard doesn't steal the spotlight all the d**n time.

Jakh was trudging forward, hunched up under layers of furs, cursing the cruel fates that forced him to flee his homeland for these grim northlands. The cold ached, deep into the marrow of his bones, and he hadn't seen a soul for days.

Finally, looking up he saw a figure in the distance, with what appeared to be a mastiff or another large hunting dog. A grin crossed his face, mutilated to the point where it would drive many a grown man to foul himself on the spot, and he continued forward, drawing into earshot of the other figure he yelled above the sound of the wind, "Peace of the Moon Goddess upon you. What brings you to these wastes?"

Logged

For the love of meat, shut up! No one wants to hear your emo character background! My hands are literally melting away, and I'm complaining less than you!—K'seliss, Goblins

Yethedrir, though endured to weather far worse then this, still wearied of it. The hel-cursed Vul-kazza would pay in blood, if he could ever find the coward. News was said to be found in a village nearby, but it seemed well hidden.

He pulled up on the reins, bringing Sridath to a stop. Movement ahead had caught his eye, and he could make out Travellers ahead. Perhaps they knew of the village he sought? Cautiously, he spurred Sridath forward.

Cold, bitter wind. It knifed through the senses, but within his mind, Xiahao set it aside. The cold in his flesh was as nothing before the slow simmer of hatred within his soul, warmer even than the thick fur cloak that enveloped his burlap robes. He hunted, and that was enough. He hunted for the man who had slain his students and stolen the Jade Lotus.

Ah, the sound of human voices? Is that what the wind carried to his ears? Shifting his course slightly, Xiahao went to investigate...

Kisanth paused as the wind tore at the words thrown forth by the hunched figure ahead of her, placing a reassuring hand upon Lovers head and gripping her mages staff more firmly, her cloak drawn tight about her against the biting cold. She was surprising to see another living soul in these frozen reaches, but the stranger gave friendly enough greeting, and the weather was far too poor for scoundrels to be anywhere outside of a warm hearth and willing wench regardless.

"We travel north in search of knowledge, but after a day of this devils teeth of a wind we'll settle for a warm fire and cup of mulled wine!" She called back, raising her voice above the driving gale. Travelers this far north were perhaps not as rare as she and Lover had first thought, whether this was good fortune or bad however, had yet to be seen.

Ah, how I have come to love that sense of accomplishment and victory that I get when I pull the wool over the eyes of a clever player character. What DM Triumphs have you had?

Some of mine:1. Finally killing an incredibly powerful, lucky, annoying player's character.2. Finally achieving a TPK (Total Party Kill)3. Finally achieving a TPK using only traps4. Finally working out how to make it so that d**n wizard doesn't steal the spotlight all the d**n time.

As Jakh approached the woman and the beast, the closer he got the more sure he was that it was a wolf not a dog, he saw two more figures in the distance. Thinking back to his childhood training in the Guild he remembered his old master's words, may 16,000 barbarians have their way with the treacherous worm's sister, The Moon Goddess provides the opportunity, but you must be bold in seizing it.

"HAIL YOU TWO, COME CLOSER SO THAT WE DON'T HAVE TO SCREAM OVER THE WINDS TO HEAR EACH OTHER. IT'S COLDER THAN A WITCH'S TITS IN A BRASS BRASSIERE OUT HERE AND THE SOONER I START MOVING AGAIN THE HAPPIER I'LL BE."

Logged

For the love of meat, shut up! No one wants to hear your emo character background! My hands are literally melting away, and I'm complaining less than you!—K'seliss, Goblins

Strangers. Best he complied for the moment, these lands were strange, and he could ill afford to waste a chance for allies. And so Xiahao slipped across the snow, his footprints light, and soon vanishing.

Gathering his cloak tighter about his body for the moment, he raised his face into the wind, a face clearly marking him as a distant foreigner, as did the thick accent as he spoke the common tongue of merchants. "You must have pressing need to be out in cold. I... hunt."

Kisanth took a half step back as the new arrivals approached, at first suspecting them to be friends of the stranger before her, realizing quickly by their body language and words they were equally unacquainted with each other.

Keeping her hand firmly upon Lovers head she carefully advanced, sizing up the new arrivals carefully. "It seems we are at a proverbial crossroads no?" She gestured to the four directions they all had advanced from. "Legend says at crossroads can come great fortune and great change."

"I passed a village not 5 miles back, if nothing else it will get us out of this thrice d**ned cold," Jakh said. Turning back the way he came he called over his shoulder with a misaligned grin, "Follow me, I don't want to lose my nose to frostbite."

An hour of trudging through the snow later.

As they were nearing the village Jakh turned to Ythedrir and asked, "You, barbarian, you said you were looking for a sorcerer? How did he wrong you, did his foul magic kill all your cattle, or did he take your virgin sister as a sacrifice?"

« Last Edit: March 06, 2012, 09:54:45 PM by Pariah »

Logged

For the love of meat, shut up! No one wants to hear your emo character background! My hands are literally melting away, and I'm complaining less than you!—K'seliss, Goblins

"Vul-Kazzah, Lover and me have heard that name recently," She raised her voice so all could hear her clearly despite lagging slightly behind the others. "A village near here was raided by a bunch of sell swords in his employ, they took children and butchered many."

She gestured to Lover with her left hand, her right leaning on her staff as the days fatigue wore upon her. "We offered to help rescue these pups and return them to their village, if you men have the heart of wolves you are welcome to join us." A bit of a goading challenge she knew, but men, much like beasts, respond well to opportunities to prove themselves, and none of them impressed her as cowards or prone to hesitaion when called to action.

"Some months ago, a man with skin and hair like snow slew my students with dark magics and stole from me, while I was at the Emperor's court. I will have his balls on my fireplace." So spake the man from the far east, as his hand slipped back within his cloak, a scowl as dark as the nights upon his face.

"His treachery must have been of the most vile. My students were not weak, and yet they were torn, limb from limb, as if by bears."

"Barbarian? I'd smash your face but I would likely improve it." Ythedrir half smiled. "The swine made off with .. items of great import to our tribes. Holy relics - the Feathers of Alfdis the Valkyrie."

"We have common cause. Let us hope that these villagers know which way the swine went."

Sridath snorted repeatedly, uncomfortable so near a wolf, yet the wolf in turn, ignored the steed, as it silently stalked beside Kisanth. The Khitan monk was mostly silent and only Jakh, his face an eye-sore of scarred flesh, would occasionally hum or attempt to converse.

The flame-haired Ythedrir, a tower among most men, first saw the pathetic settlement come into view, a meager village nearly buried in the snows. Hovels and huts of wood, peat, and moss crowded together in a small two-hundred meter enclosure, surrounded by a pathetic barricade (it could not be called a wall) of sharpened logs.

An opening in the barricade allowed the four travelers to enter the village unimpeded.

Pale, sickly smoke rose in wisps from several of the huts, and only the sound of metal clanging against an anvil could be heard. An open-air smithy stood, near the center of the Thorpe, countless furs strung together serving as a make-shift roof.

A young man, barely into his twenties hammered down on the weathered anvil with great focus and fury. He gripped tongs holding a broad-sword in the other, its blade cooling quickly in the freezing cold of winter. He glanced up quickly at the strangers, then ignored them once more hammering on his weapon.

Another man across the way was skinning foxes, and hanging their furs to dry.

A woman, babe in hand, stared at the intruders unabashed, eye-ing them up and down, as they neared the village’s center, her eyes darting nervously from the wolf to the man with the jagged face, to the red-haired axe-man to the blue-donned, one-eyed woman and to the weird, intense man in robes and fur cloak.

“What are you wanting? We have little to do with strangers here.” The woman spoke boldly, but plainly.

Ah, how I have come to love that sense of accomplishment and victory that I get when I pull the wool over the eyes of a clever player character. What DM Triumphs have you had?

Some of mine:1. Finally killing an incredibly powerful, lucky, annoying player's character.2. Finally achieving a TPK (Total Party Kill)3. Finally achieving a TPK using only traps4. Finally working out how to make it so that d**n wizard doesn't steal the spotlight all the d**n time.

Kisanth stared back at the woman with her good eye, detecting an underlying current of fear in her voice, mixed with the more obvious tones of distrust. "Me and my companion Lover seek a warm bed and hot meal, for now," She began, gesturing to her hulking wolf with a free hand, feeling it better to allow her companions to voice their intentions themselves. "Beyond that knowledge of Vul-Kazzah's tower, so that we may bring him a recoking that will echo across the chasm of time itself."

"We have no warm beds to spare, and no hot meals to share. You need to move on---" At the mention of Vul-Kazzah, the woman literally shuddered, and gripped her babe tighter to her chest.

(Of disturbing note, the companions notice the babe is either fast asleep or---)

"Begone!" she raises her voice now

"Gulna, be thee begone instead. This is no way to treat strangers." a new voice, full of phlegm and cough. An old wizened man, his scrawny flesh and bones barely covered in furs, and partially exposed, stepped forth from a hut and likewise eyed the strangers.

"We have beds to spare. More than we would like. But we are poor here, and coin or barter would be in order." He smiles, his mouth devoid of teeth, save the one yellow-brown one.

His rheumy eyes seek the Vanirman. "Ye are no raiders then? Then who are ye? And why do you speak the name of the albino sorcerer? A reckoning ye say?" He tries not to look upon Jakh's face, and ignores the statue-like Xiahao. He also tries hard not to stare at Kisanth, but fails, his lecherous thoughts plain to see, despite his advanced age.

Ah, how I have come to love that sense of accomplishment and victory that I get when I pull the wool over the eyes of a clever player character. What DM Triumphs have you had?

Some of mine:1. Finally killing an incredibly powerful, lucky, annoying player's character.2. Finally achieving a TPK (Total Party Kill)3. Finally achieving a TPK using only traps4. Finally working out how to make it so that d**n wizard doesn't steal the spotlight all the d**n time.

Cutting in almost as soon as the old man swallowed his tongue Jakh said, "I'm Jakh, called the Foul by many, I'm sure you've figured out why," smiling he continued, "What my loquacious traveling companions are not doubt waiting anxiously to say is that they have some personal issues with Val-Kazzah. Something about brutal slaughtering scores of innocents and stealing priceless artifacts, some curses were cast that shouldn't have been." Stopping he looked back at Ythedrir and then leaned forward to stage whisper in the old man's ear, "he also got the barbarian's little sister pregnant and fled the town the next day." Continuing speaking so that the whole group could hear him once more, "Terrible deeds, truthfully, and he must be brought to justice."

Pausing for a moment he looked around, "Now, if you'd be so kind as to point me to the nearest tavern, or brothel, I'd be much obliged."

« Last Edit: March 07, 2012, 11:36:46 PM by Pariah »

Logged

For the love of meat, shut up! No one wants to hear your emo character background! My hands are literally melting away, and I'm complaining less than you!—K'seliss, Goblins

"Ho-ha!" the old man chortles, his black lungs straining, "hasn't been a brothel here since three-fingered Hildy passed from the runs." The old-man calms himself, scratches his stubbly chin and says, "my barn ye can use, full of straw to sleep on and to feed that horse...and other creature. Cheese we can offer, and some mulled wine, aye. What have you to give for in return for this hospitality?"

"Nevertheemind Gulna, she thinks her babe is still alive" he adds matter-of-factly, and Gulna stalks off, without a another word.

"Ye'll find that devil-cur no easy prey", the booming voice of the young blacksmith suddenly sounded, "He takes what he wants, and his soul is an endless abyss of evil. This we have learned. We have learned to fear his magic and his trained snow-apes", he continues clanging, seemingly having said what he wanted and no more.

"Bah, do not listen to the young and foolish, my friends" craws the old, one-toothed man. "come, let me show ye where ye can sleep. That creature...that *wolf*, it will behave? We have pigs and chickens walking freely." he asks Kisanth.

"So, ye hunt the albino sorcerer?" he mutters, as he leads the incongruous group to the barn-stables, "He is a man of *great* power. Ye are foolish", as he says this, he almost smiles, in a most peculiar manner.

Ah, how I have come to love that sense of accomplishment and victory that I get when I pull the wool over the eyes of a clever player character. What DM Triumphs have you had?

Some of mine:1. Finally killing an incredibly powerful, lucky, annoying player's character.2. Finally achieving a TPK (Total Party Kill)3. Finally achieving a TPK using only traps4. Finally working out how to make it so that d**n wizard doesn't steal the spotlight all the d**n time.

"Lover does not eat straw, he prefers fresh meat, as do I." Kisanth replied matter of factly, not sure if the man was speaking in jest or truly lacked knowledge of wild beasts from the south. "Or the balls of those who leer at me with too much lust in their eyes." She added, just loud enough for the man to hear her over the gusting wind, her familiars low growl clearly audible."

She waved her free hand dismissively at his inquiry of Lovers discipline, long since used to such fear voiced by small minded townsfolk everywhere she went. "Lover will share my bed, and my meal, as he has most of his life, your livestock and children have little to fear from him," she paused a moment for dramatic effect, "or me for that matter."

As they entered the run down barn she turned and passed the man a small leather pouch. "These healing herbs should be adequate compensation for Lover and my stay here, I know coin has little value this far north where the claws of winter tear at peoples health." The man may be unsettling and grungy, but if properly compensated for the nights lodging hopefully would trouble them no further.

Ah, how I have come to love that sense of accomplishment and victory that I get when I pull the wool over the eyes of a clever player character. What DM Triumphs have you had?

Some of mine:1. Finally killing an incredibly powerful, lucky, annoying player's character.2. Finally achieving a TPK (Total Party Kill)3. Finally achieving a TPK using only traps4. Finally working out how to make it so that d**n wizard doesn't steal the spotlight all the d**n time.

The old geezer accepted Kisanth's healing herbs grudgingly, but at the site of Ythedrir's silver his rheumy eyes lit up.

"If you insist on pursuing your own death and doom (yes, both), know ye that the great one dwells in an impregnable tower locked in perpetual ice. It is less than a week's ride north from our humble thorpe." The geezer looks at the massive Ythedrir and smiles again, licking his tooth, "Ye think your axe will will be enough? Gods be with you, man of Vanaheim, gods be with you..."

Ah, how I have come to love that sense of accomplishment and victory that I get when I pull the wool over the eyes of a clever player character. What DM Triumphs have you had?

Some of mine:1. Finally killing an incredibly powerful, lucky, annoying player's character.2. Finally achieving a TPK (Total Party Kill)3. Finally achieving a TPK using only traps4. Finally working out how to make it so that d**n wizard doesn't steal the spotlight all the d**n time.